Seeds for a happy planet

The Open Space session that I convened in the afternoon of the third day was framed as: How will the relationship be between Citizens, Economy and Politics in the new story?, using the systemic constellation work as a way of going with it. Some of the participants were interested in the topic, others came more to have an experience with the method as such. As much as I have done and participated in constellations, I was once again fascinated by ‘the result’ we got out of only half hour of concentrating on this question.

I will list here the elements that showed up; as I, as the constellator, left it open to the participants of what they felt called to represent. First came up the Statue of Liberty – amazing for me as a European! – and then followed by the Old Story, a Human Being, the Commons, Nature and the New Story.

Here is the story as we read and showed in the convergence of the Open Space to the other participants.

I, the Old Story/System feel grounded and rooted at the Statue of Liberty.
I, the New Story must spring out of the Old Story.
I, the Commons find my source in nature.
I, Nature only see nature and can only sense something of the old story.
I, Human Being, want connection with Nature and the New Story.
I, State of Liberty, I am here to serve you as your symbol and invite you to re-symbolise and rename me. I was born as a radical idea, what is the current version of this?

I, Old Story, see everything shifting around me, and I am indifferent to all of it.
I, the New Story need to back away from the Old Story and find a new relationship with Nature and Human Being.
I, Human Being, feel damned important that the New Story and nature need me.
I, the Commons, feel the call to re-symbolise the Statue of Liberty.
I, the New Story feel the need to shake hands with the Old Story.

It is interesting to note here that in the unfolding of the constellation New Story was not inclined to look at Old Story; and Old Story wasn’t interested in anything at all; it was just there. It took an intervention of me, the constellator to ask them to look at each other; which they then did without problem. I asked the New Story to express in a way her gratefulness of what the Old Story had provided for. That seemed to be exactly the energy she was sensing, which was expressed in her wish to shake hands. Also important to note that the Old Story was slightly less rigid after hearing the gratitude.

I, the Old Story, feel indifferent but open to suggestions.
I, Nature, am vast, timeless, expansive and eroded many stories, and will in the future.
I, New Story, need to revolve around to be able to see all the other elements.
I, Old Story, feel a strong impulse to step away: one, then two, then three fast steps from all the shifts and movements.

The new symbol for the Statue of Liberty is a tree! (said by the Commons)
I, the New Story, turn my side to the Old Story; now facing everyone else.
I, the Statue of Liberty, look forward to the new symbol… to the energy directed to the re-symbolising.
I, Human Being, wanted to shrink.

The most important insight for me was that in the framework of evolution and the large cycles of life, this is not the new story! This is just a next story, and it needs to find the right relationship with the one that came before. There is not a real jump that can be made where you can leave everything behind… and I am more than happy that the story so far provides me with internet, and transport and laptops and health care that can do amasing things… and much, much more!

We had a most wonderful day – the third – in our learning gathering Art of Humans Being. It was juicy, it had song, it had a lot of embodied stuff… I think you can say it had a wholeness and fullness to it and I saw a lot of twinkling eyes and many, many conversations going on.

I want to share the nuggets we shared at the end of the day in the ceremony firecircle, here on the land. There was no fire, but there was the music of the flute that welcomed us; as it had done in the morning. And we all wrote down one specific learning of the day about repatterning and the new story. Here we go: (again read out slowly to let it all sink in!)

Trust source operating through ourselves – we already have it.
Body and Nature; Simple and Elegant.
Going with the flow, relaxed about outcome.
What are the questions that lead us to feel most alive?
It is not the new story being better than the old on; it is the next story building on the previous one.
The system works. Relax. Let go. Trust.
With trust, love deeply in the old and new story.
Form a new relationship with souls purpose and step into our fullness, naked and courageous.
Separate acting, community acting; it is all the same act.
Living in a new way, a new story.
Let our collective music arise from source.
Strengthening and listening to body wisdom.
Build a nest, let it rest. The rest will build the rest.
Lovingly held and gently hosted spaces; heartfelt wisdom flowing freely.
Magic of the flute.
Deep, deep, deep listening to higher self and purpose.
Experience. Wait. Ask. Listen.
My highest self is participatory.
Dear universe, What do I want to tell you that you don’t already know? You tell me. I’ll try to listen. Hey, thanks.
A little can be a lot.
The new stories are infinite and alluring, filling up with awe, curiosity and exitement. Gratitude for friendship.
I am here now.

Third day in our learnIng gathering. We started with some singing and then moved to some excersises that were inspired by the systemic constellation work. First it was a relating to our highest potential – life’s work – soul – higher self; all in silence and using the body to sense the nuances and try new things out.

Then we did a collective sensing in how we relate with The New Story. As intro we used a poem, written by a dear friend living in Greece, and these days confronted with the reality of living without oil and what then comes to a halt. Again all happened in silence, and being aware of the many subtle ways that we know. What follows here are the nuggest spoken in a circle about what we learned, new insights we got, out of this last constellation; either on elements of the new story or how to relate with it.

I advice you to read it slowly, letting time between each line; maybe read it twice as we did in the circle this morning.

Expansion and flexibiity
Opennes and uncertainty of direction
Potential and bodies reaching for each other; no sense of what the new story is.
There is an opening between humanity and the source; the connection is beginning.
Role of attraction and allurement; of beauty; and the attraction of the trees.
Opening out.
Wicked cool! Wicked friends! Cool!
The light coming through the leaves and looking at the ground. The trees are solid.
I am the Earth, the old and the new story. I want respect.
Slowing and noticing.

Creative tension between opposites. Is humanity ready? It does not have to be big.
Spirits are here to guide us. Learn to ask and listen.
The call of the great wild cosmos.
Aware of pressure.
Each of us connecting to the earth, and the rest of the universe, and each of us seeking each other.
Being open to receive source.
Like a kid in a candy store: curiousity, playfulness and so much to discover.
It doesn’t seem incidentical that we are passing time (a little clock being the talking piece); counter clockwise.
People trying to connect in many different ways.
Lots of energy and potential and conversations and relationships.
Receiving the trees, guarding the forest; knowing there is no away.
Wonder, awe and curiousity.
Aware of being a small node in a vast system.
When you turn the clock face over there are stars.
Attention to the shifting whole.

My friend Helen made a nice blogpost on Natural ways of working, a few days ago. She is a natural kind of harvester, both in beautiful words and pictures! Most of the words you can read here, the pictures are on her blog.

“The campfire, so reminiscent of our earliest human roots, is a guide to natural ways that conversation flows among people sitting in a circle. And so, as I listened to people’s stories about their experiences of participatory leadership, I found myself distilling what I heard into some principles that could move us away from the stifling hierarchical paradigm that many of us find so oppressive and towards some easy attitudes that promote effortless thriving.

* Nature’s implicit purpose is to thrive – nature is in the business of creating life from life. It is the manifestation of living wholeness, evolving. Humanity is part of that evolution. Evolution is about awakening – through the higher mammals and us humans, nature is becoming conscious of itself as a living whole. In the workplace, if what we are doing is truly in service of the whole, to allow the whole to thrive, then we will seek ways to achieve our purpose that allow all affected to thrive in the longer term, and to enhance our own and each other’s wellbeing in the short term. Part of the way we can do this as individuals is to freely offer our gifts to each other, in service of each other’s thriving, and to ask others for what we need but cannot provide for ourselves.

* Attend to the invisible realms – a lot of life is invisible to the eye. What goes on under the ground or in the sub-atomic or quantum spaces is just as important as what we can empirically observe. The same is true of what happens in organisations and inside and between people. A lot of life is equally invisible to the mind. One often neglected place of invisible power is silence. Another is what happens in the wake of a good question. Most potent of all, though, is the invisible field that holds communities, conversations, projects – all shared entities, however nebulous or immaterial. The mind cannot grasp this concept in any but the most abstract terms – it is the domain of physical and subtle sensing, and not conducive to rational dissection.

* Flexibly adapt around constraints – nature doesn’t make a big deal about obstacles and constraints. It simply incorporates them or grows around them. If it can be said to have a focus, that focus is thriving and creating more life, not obsessing about restrictions. If we keep a constant eye on our shared purpose, and if that purpose is truly in service of greater wholeness, then the kosmos will tend to meet us half-way in the most unexpected forms, as synchronicity spreads like an algal bloom around us.

* Focus on relationship – the transformative power of simple human contact has been so overlooked in mainstream organisational culture, and yet it remains true that relationship is the soil in which the seed of task is sown. Relationships thrive on simplicity. Too much complexity tends to undermine the trust without which healthy belonging is not possible. Simple practices are often the most effective – things like celebrating birthdays, honouring people’s acts of courage, stepping up to help and support each other in small ways and remembering each other at important or challenging times when we cannot be physically present.

* Nature is participatory – in any ecosystem, all elements participate fully. The only participation required of them is to be fully themselves. The greater the diversity and the greater the interaction between the diverse elements, the stronger and more resilient the system. In human systems, inviting full participation creates ownership, which in turn creates belonging, which creates commitment. As natural beings ourselves, it can help us to remember that our best contribution is simply to show up as ourselves. Having the courage to offer our unique perspective, for the good of the whole, even when we are unsure how it will be received.”

This post was written during the Immersion, a gathering/program regarding Living Wholeness, that happened a few weeks ago in Axladitsa, Greece.

I realise more and more how I am connecting back to the worlds of the subtle, the invisible, the natural… and slowly – very slowly – the experience is dripping into my Western mindset that I am (and we are) totally interdependent with these worlds.

I was laying on Kastri Beach in the early morning, with nobody else around and I suddenly felt as if someone was next to me. I sat up and looked around. Of course nobody was there. (the picture is from some years ago, but the same beach!) I remembered having this feeling a lot of times last year when working in the garden. So many times that I questioned myself what it was and the answer came in the form of the book Cocreative Science, where the author describes how she cocreates together with what she calls devas and nature spirits. I first had to go beyond my childish ideas of dwarfs and elfs to understand these ‘beings’ in terms of energies and fields, which then make a lot of sense to me.

So I checked in with this being/energy/field, and my sense was that the spirit of this beach was quite happy with me being there and there seemed to be a connection with a spot on the beach where Axladitsa folks many times have gathered. I remembered that Jacki had collected some garbage from the beach a few days ago, and I did too; as it is my habit anyway. It seemed to me that I made this beach-being stronger by doing this.

Then there are the snakes and the lizards. We are approaching in our current program here the invisible and the unconscious, the subterranean as it is called in our map. Three days ago I noticed the skin of a snake tied into the little brick wall in our groups space. Interesting… Then on Wednesday I noticed a snake, tied in a strongly shaped knot around what I could later recognise as a lizard. I stopped and watched it for some time. Had the snake of transformation ourselves in her grip? I noticed the lizard being still for long minutes, then suddenly moving… it seemed to have gained some more freedom… I walked on to get something out of my tent.

Later that night we drew Tarot cards to get clarity about where we were in the process of our gathering; and in the end asked personal messages about our shadows and what is holding us back. In having this conversation some energy was released, something opened up.

Much to my surprise this morning, at the well, a lizard without a tail showed itself to me… I’m not saying this was the same lizard I saw before, but somehow interesting!

More snakes would show itself over the next days to other participants in the gathering; and to my great, great surprise; when I returned to the well in the evening, I noticed the tail of the lizard in the grass! If you would ever try to find a tail of a lizard laying in the grass…

Is this just metaphor?
Or is some deeper interconnection going on?
Can I get into the experience of how this is all interconnected, mutually shaping each other?
Can I really move myself in the awareness that I – we as humans – are mirrored in what we do and what we go through in the other realms; subtle and invisible, or as visible as snakes and lizards?

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